A Source of Confidence
by Leaving-My-Mark
Summary: "Ever since I met you I've known three things: one, that you're incredibly talented; two, that you're extremely confident; and three, that you wouldn't be confident if you didn't have a good reason to be." Takes place right where Ep. 6 left off.


**A/N: **So, I've realized that I am much too obsessed with this show as of late, as this is now my second Korra fanfic in like, a week or two. And it's my second dealing with a self-conscious and confidence-lacking Korra. What's wrong with me to enjoy writing so much about characters feeling incompetent in the aftermath of failure? I'm going to try to make my next one, if there is a next one, happier, I swear! But for now, enjoy this sad and angsty comfort one shot!

**Summary:** In the aftermath of Amon's attack on the Probending Arena, Korra grows frustrated with her seemingly constant failed attempts at being the Avatar and goes back to the team's warm up room to take out her frustrations. After giving her a brief time alone, Mako enters to help calm her down and regain her confidence.

* * *

After Tenzin's solemn declaration as they all take in the damaged arena, Korra frowns. She surveys the shattered glass roof, the hole in the arena, the craters throughout the arena caused by Amon's bombs, and the unconscious and perhaps dead bodies that litter the stands. That's when she can't take it anymore. That's when her eyes begin to glaze over and she realizes that she can't stay here with them anymore. Abruptly she turns away, quickly retreating in the direction of the Fire Ferrets' warm up room with her head down.

"Korra?" A quiet and confused Bolin calls after her. She doesn't reply.

"Korra, where are you going?" It's Tenzin calling for her this time, but Korra doesn't turn around or hesitate in her retreat.

She's nearing the door when she hears a few distant footsteps behind her. Surely either Mako's or Bolin's hasty attempts to chase after her. Korra thinks it's more likely Bolin who attempts to go after her; he's always the brother who has the hardest time letting go. A moment later the footsteps abruptly come to an end as she hears a voice that sounds like Tenzin's telling him something along the lines of, "Let her be."

Down the hall and through the door to the right, Korra sinks down onto the bench in the middle of the room and in front of the lockers and heaves a shaky sigh. "This is all because of me," she tells herself softly. "Why couldn't I have just let them cancel the tournament? Why couldn't I stop Amon?"

"Why can't I _ever_ stop Amon?" she demands more harshly of herself a moment later. She stands and walks over to her locker, ramming her fist into the cold metal to punctuate the frustrated thought. "Every single time I go up against him I end up looking more and more pathetic!" she says, growing more and more frustrated by the moment.

"Can't I just do one thing right?" She shouts, punching the locker again, but harder than before. She hits it so hard, in fact, that a small dent forms in the metal. _I hope Toza doesn't make us pay damages for that…_ she can't help thinking for a moment before she turns away from the locker and collapses against it, looking up to the ceiling.

"How did you do it?" she asks, wishing it were easier to obtain an answer from her most recent past life.

She sighs, knowing she is never going to get an answer like this. What's worse is that she knows that she won't even get close to getting anything from Aang until she actually learns how to access the Spirit World, and she and Tenzin both know that that's not going to be happening any time soon.

"I mean, seriously, you come into the picture after being frozen in a chunk of ice for years and you end a hundred-year-long war. I come into the picture and I start one only months after my arrival," she states hopelessly.

There's a gentle, almost shy knock at the door and Korra jumps away from the wall and turns to face it. She waits a moment, wondering which of the three men it must be, because she sure knows it's not going to be Chief Beifong. She also waits because she's kind of hoping they'll go away; she doesn't think she wants company right now. She just wants to be left alone.

"Korra?" She's a little surprised to hear Mako's voice. Sure, they've made up and they're friends again, but he usually keeps his distance from her when he knows she's upset and emotional. It's Bolin, the less stoic and more social of the two brothers, who usually comes to her aid when there's something on her mind.

She hesitates to answer, knowing he's probably as uncomfortable about approaching her as she is reluctant to deal with anyone right now. But after another, more authoritative knock on the door and another, "Korra?" she starts to feel a little guilty about leaving him out to dry when he's obviously stepped out of his comfort zone to come and talk to her. It's such a blatant display of affection and concern that she feels wrong to ignore it so coldly.

Without further indecision, Korra heads over to the door and slowly opens it, peeking around the door to find Mako's concerned face on the other side.

"I was starting to think you might be ignoring me," he says as he steps past her and into the room. She closes the door.

"Yeah, to be honest, I thought about it for a good moment or two," she admits sheepishly, holding one arm at the elbow and looking down at the floor for a moment.

"I heard some of the things you were saying," he says, and her eyes, which she had just turned back upward, fall back down to meet the floor once more.

"Exactly…how much…did you hear?" she asks very slowly, knowing the answer that she wants, which is "just a little bit," isn't what she's going to get.

"Everything from the part where you asked whether you could do something right for a change."

"So…basically the whole thing…" Korra replies ashamedly.

"I suppose so," Mako answers frankly. "Why, what else was there?"

"Not a whole lot. A bit about how it's my entire fault, a bit about Amon showing me up every single time I face him, and a bit about how useless and pathetic I am in general," she says irritably, taking to pacing without even knowing it.

"Hold it right there," Mako says, reaching out and grabbing her by the arm, stopping her pacing. He turns her to face him and sternly counters, "First of all, this is _not_ your fault. The council, Tenzin, Chief Beifong, Amon, all those other benders and all the Equalists out there—even Bo and I; we all had a role in this whole turn of events. But it is _not y_our fault. Just because you're the Avatar doesn't mean that when something goes wrong, it's automatically all your fault. You're human. Agni, you're only _seventeen_! You're just starting out with this whole Avatar thing! And sure, you're the Avatar, but you need to stop being so harsh on yourself."

"I have to be. In the end, it's going to be my responsibility to right this whole thing and end this war, anyway. Unless I die in the process. Then it's the next sorry young Avatar's problem, and who knows—"

"Stop it," Mako barks back, firmly grabbing both her shoulders and looking at her crossly. "Why do you say that like it's no big deal to you? Like the idea of dying doesn't scare you at all?"

Korra looks away from him, which is kind of hard to do given the small amount of space between them that he's created. She stares at a light burn mark on his shoulder; she stares at the Future Industries emblem on his Fire Ferret's uniform. She stares at everything but his eyes, because they're full of so much intensity and confusion that she doesn't know how to respond to it all.

Out of her peripheral vision she sees his face inch closer to hers as he leans in and says, "I know that's a lie. I know you're scared. You're so afraid you're going to fail; that you're going to go down in history as the worst Avatar to ever exist, but that's not going to happen." She honestly isn't sure why it happens, but before she can stop it her face begins to redden, her throat starts to constrict, and tears brim at the rims of her eyes. There's no way she can face him now.

"Korra, look at me," he pleads softly, but she mutely shakes her head. "Korra, please," he asks again, the tenderness and desperation in his voice causing her to look up at him for a moment as if to check if it's really him. Before she has the chance to look away again, he takes her chin and gingerly tilts it up so that she's forced to keep her gaze on him. Fleetingly, the fact that she has never cried in front of him and shown him quite so much vulnerability as she's showing now crosses through her mind.

"When I first met you, you seemed so sure of yourself and so damn cocky." He smiles at her a little; and perhaps it's that comforting grin or perhaps it's how true she knows his statement is, but whatever the reason, he gets her to chuckle. "When I first met you, you made it a point to prove me wrong and to show me just how special you were. Do you have any idea how stupid I felt when I realized I'd been treating you like some floozy fangirl when you were actually the Avatar?" He chuckles a little himself this time, and Korra can't help but giggle a bit, too.

"Your face was pretty amusing…" she concedes with a bit of that old Korra flare. He removes his hand from her chin and casually runs the same hand along the side of his hair to smooth it out as he rolls his eyes and smiles.

"Yeah, so Bo's told me." And then his expression becomes serious again. "But look, my point here is that ever since I met you I've known three things: one, that you're incredibly talented; two, that you're extremely confident; and three, that you wouldn't be confident if you didn't have a good reason to be. And trust me when I tell you that you have not lost any reason for you to be that self-assured and cocky girl I first met. In fact, you've got all the more reason to be."

Although she's been stunned into silence throughout his whole speech, when he gets to that final bit about having all the more reason to be confident, she stops him with a derisive laugh. "No, that's where you're wrong. I'm losing reasons every day: I practically ruined a whole street of businesses trying to stop a few Triads; I fail at Airbending; I can't even get close to meditating and entering the Spirit World; I let Tarrlok trick me into joining his task force; I let Amon ambush me; I foolishly kissed you when I knew you had feelings for Asami; I let Bolin think I had feelings for him and broke his heart; I let Amon and the Equalists take over the arena…I started a war," she says, pulling her head out of his hand and stepping away.

"I already told you, you are not solely to blame for the start of this war. It's not between just you and Amon, it's between all of us and it's involved all of us since the start. Agni, you can be so stubborn!" Mako says with irritation as he runs a hand through his damp hair and follows her to the other side of the training room.

She doesn't say anything, but rather turns when she gets to the other side of the room and leans against the wall like she did earlier against her locker. She folds her arms over her chest and aims her head down, but her eyes continue to watch him with faint interest, if only because he might walk over and force her to look at him again if she doesn't.

"But you know what? That's why you deserve every ounce of confidence you've got, Korra. Because you're stubborn and because after all the little mistakes you've made, you're still trying. You're trying _so_ hard to make up for them and to fix them."

Korra straightens up, tilts her head up, and stares at him for a long moment. She really doesn't know how to respond and a part of her is still trying to look for a way to keep the argument going because she doesn't think she deserves any sort of praise.

"Hey, you're allowed to make mistakes, Korra. You're allowed to try your hardest to fix the big ones, even. But you should never, ever dwell on them for too long, because they can ruin you." He's standing a few feet away from her and when she looks up to meet his eyes for a moment she sees a steely resolve as well as hesitance; as if he's about to say something he's reluctant to share.

"I know because it nearly happened to me. You know how my parents died; I was only a kid when I saw them die." She nods her head, silent and at his full attention. As he speaks, she watches his eyes, because they often say so much more than he does. And he's saying a lot. In fact, aside from his commands during practices, she's never heard him say so much. "Do you know how much it tore me up inside for the longest time? I tormented myself with all these theories as to how I could've saved them and stopped that Firebender who killed them. I blamed myself for years. Despite knowing how absurd it was to feel guilty and to think I could change it, I still thought about it for ages.

"It nearly ruined me, Korra, and I'm not going to let this ruin you," he says, his eyes softly yet sternly staring at her with a brutally honest gleam in them. "There are going to be things you can't go back and stop and things you can't fix, and there are going to be some things you'll regret for the longest time. But please, don't torment yourself by dwelling on those things for too long. You're better than that," he continues, almost pleading with her at this point.

"But I just feel like—" she begins meekly, but he cuts her off.

"Don't. I don't want to hear it," he answers sharply.

"Mako—" Korra starts softly, but breaks off, not knowing what to say. And then, having no idea how else to show him she believes him and that she's so thankful he's even here, Korra launches forward, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his uniform right where the emblem is. She burrows herself in his embrace, in his warmth, in his unwavering faith in her. Automatically he envelopes her and holds her close, not in any sort of romantic way per say, but in a way that demonstrates to her that he'll always be around when she needs him; a way that demonstrates to her that he believes in her, and suddenly she does, too.

And once again, she feels like she's ready to take anything on so long as he does.

* * *

**A/N:** If you enjoyed this or have any comments or criticism you'd like to make (or if you'd like to talk about the series so far), leave a review! Thanks for reading!


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